IN MEMORIAM Alain Plessis (1932-2010)

摘要

Alain Plessis, a leading figure of the French school of economic and social history, died on 16 August 2010, aged 78. A laureate of the Ecole Normale Superieure and agregation d'histoire, he held the chair of modern economic history at the University of Paris X-Nanterre until 2000, having previously taught at the Sorbonne and at the University of Paris VIII-Saint Denis. Plessis was an eminent specialist in financial history and served many years as a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the European Association for Banking and Financial History. His scholarly production spanned five authored books, nine volumes edited or co-edited, and more than seventy articles and book chapters. His dissertation of doctoral d'Etat, a masterpiece in three volumes written under the supervision of Ernest Labrousse and later of Jean Bouvier, was devoted to the Banque de France under the Second Empire. During his long career, however, his work came to encompass the history of the whole French financial system, including insurance companies, local banks and the Haute Banque. His interest in banking and monetary issues stems from his view that money is vital for social and political stability, so that its management not only responds to the pressure of markets but needs also to come to terms with the values and the expectations of the overall society. On this ground, Plessis was methodologically opposed to a separation between economic and social history. 'It is at the junction of the economic, social and mental facts,' he contended, 'where interests, mentality and human attitudes interact..., that the main problems lie and can be understood' (Plessis 1985a).